One year and counting...

Despite this post existing and the novelty candle I've chosen as 'suitable' decor, I'm not really into self indulgence and celebration. However it has been almost a year since my first post and against better judgement I've decided to mark the occasion. My aforementioned concerns duly noted, I'd like to reflect on the past 12 months from a perspective of technological change and how the original purpose of a blog has faired, changed and evolved in that time. 


It is with a fair amount of shame that I look back at the screen shots of my first attempt at web development. Even with the caveat of wanting to learn basic HTML it's a poor, poor site! One of the many reasons I decided it had to go was the realisation that it was the experience of creating the site as opposed to the actual use of the site that I valued more (interestingly that's true in part for this blog too). I was happy to take it down and eager to replace it with something more respectable. 


From this point onwards desire and outcome started to differ. The stated aim was to develop a content-managed site through Joomla! that would house a more sophisticated website and incorporate a cared-for blog (my previous blog was an aspiration that remained as such). I was undecided as to the content of the website, having no established use case and perhaps hoped rather than anticipated that I'd find uses. I'm still searching today for appropriate uses and this, along with advances in blogger.com since my 2007 attempt at a blog pretty much stopped the Joomla! experiment in it's tracks. 


I've mentioned before a couple of sites that I based the structure of this blog around: www.jemimakiss.com is one, Scott Bramley's Blog another and the excellent www.newmusicstrategies.com the third. These sites show that you could include more content than just blog posts to a blog site and as such usurp Joomla! and other such platforms altogether. It's not an approach I'd recommend for corporate websites but on a smaller scale it works well. I was able to include links to other blogs I found enjoyable, my social networking accounts and other links of note under one umbrella. The layout is configured using user-friendly wizards and for a novice there's little chance of causing serious damage.


The end result was a web presence I wasn't ashamed of! That was a good first step. However I very much doubted my ability to write what I would consider acceptable posts that people would actually enjoy reading. To this end and true even as I type, I don't publicise my blog. In fact the only link to it remains in the Bio section of Twitter. The reasons for including it on Twitter I'm not entirely convinced by, except that I can acknowledge that I started using Twitter comfortable with knowing that it wasn't a trend I was following that had been laid out by friends, colleagues or other peer pressures. It was something I was happy to embark upon solo and this perhaps explains why I feel more comfortable linking to the blog there. A stated aim I had (if not publically stated) was to develop new skills that were a move away from my current occupation, skill set and interests. I guess part of that was finding an environment where I could do that semi incognito.  


On reflection I think I've achieved what I set out to almost a year ago. If not as all-singing and dancing and in truth probably useless as Joomla! could have provided, but a presence that was easy to create, maintain and develop and in hindsight has allowed me to concentrate on the actual writing elements of the blog (the writing is the main reason I started out). I wanted a place to document my thoughts and 'insights' (probably a definition others will need to vouch for) and develop writing experience and above all a style that at some point in the future, someone might want to pay for (the content editing rather than journalistic side of things). I was happy for these aspirations to be achieved slowly and will be the first to acknowledge that I'm still very much working towards them. 


One area that I think has helped me with the writing side of things has been structure. I decided at the start to concentrate my posts to clearly defined subjects. The plural nature was needed to recognise that I had a wider range of interests on which I wanted to write about but also that I didn't feel confident in writing within the confines of a single subject. A jack of all trades approach to a certain extent. I also decided to use labels to categorise these themes and hopefully enable anyone reading my blog to quickly find what the think may be relevant postings. 


Eventually I settled on three subjects: Technology, Music and Sport. These cover fairly concisely my interests and the areas I would probably enjoy writing about. Music was included almost as an aspirational target as unlike technology the subject is still very much approached from a historical perspective. I felt that meant that more people were likely to have already covered the subjects I wanted to cover and that added a weight of expectation and benchmarking that didn't necessarily come with Technology and Sport. Over the past year it's certainly been the subject that I've struggle the most to write about. 


The second part of the brief for writing was to provide an alternative perspective to the subject being discussed. I like to introduce context and perspective to current topics that often get overlooked in mainstream media reporting and where appropriate relate precedents to situations that have gone unnoticed. I'd like to think my posts regarding Football being a business and how Google's development can be seen to mirror Microsoft's are example in achieving these aims. With Technology in particular I wanted to move away from the descriptive nature of many blog reviews and focus on themes such as impact, effectiveness, world order and in a lot of cases commercial sustainability. Reading a lot of material that documents new technologies it always frustrates me that their impact isn't really explored past the 'with it be a hit or a miss' debate. 


I'm happy with the way my blog has progressed to date and have every intension of continuing in a similar vein in the immediate future. I do understand however that technology changes and hope to be able to incorporate some of those changes in due course. In particular I'm looking forward to using Google Wave for future blog postings. However I am also aware that there are issues I need to address in order to progress from what I believe has been a solid start. 


The issue I think I'll struggle most to overcome is audience. I'm perfectly aware and content with the fact that my audience is practically non-existent. A friend now and again will read and comment and I've had the occasional conversation about my blog with people through Twitter. Despite knowing that I have no audience I find I can write with one in mind. However I don't know how long that mindset will last and it doesn't really challenge me to improve much. Equally though I don't see any benefit in a blog that has nondescript comments from supportive friends if I increase my circulation and promotion. I'm not sure that the purpose of blogs (and certainly mine) is in essence a popularity contest to see how much reaction you can generate. Even with mainstream blogs from media outlets and more niche offerings from the tech world I see little value in the structure of comments and discussions that follow posts. It is difficult to follow a thread or discussion and rarely adds to the experience of reading a particular post. To that extent I'm still wary of mass publicisation and will for the time being maintain status quo and evaluate some more!


As Confucius' musings on a journey's beginning can be related to many a situation, so to will I endeavour to make a start: any feedback, suggestions, comments, objections, opinions, conjecture or abuse is ready to be received!